Man Impaled By Tree And Lives To Tell The Story

Posted by Queuebot in Everything Else on November 10, 2009 at 3:03 pm

Jack Weir was clearing trees in his family farm with a Bobcat when a large cottonwood hit back and impaled him with a piece of wood 20 feet long and 6 inches thick.

What happened next was nothing short of a miracle:

A broken limb came flying in under the roll bar, spearing Jack through the belly with a piece of wood 20 feet long and six inches thick.

“I’ve always had a pretty high tolerance for pain. I had no pain, I had none,” Wier said.

Still, he knew the situation was desperate. That’s when Jack remembered the military mantra he relied on during his 38 years in the army.

“You define the problem…you identify alternatives… you accumulate relevant information… and then you make a decision. My problem was I got this tree in me,” explained the tree accident victim.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by jmillitzer.

 
Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         


Neatorama Shop » Computer & Office » Road Mice


Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams?

Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life!

See more Road Mice »

Why Do Women Experience Menopause?

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on October 13, 2009 at 11:11 am

Is there an evolutionary reason for women to undergo menopause? One theory says that it happens so they can survive long enough to be grandmothers. This is not a reward; it is another method of helping one’s genes to survive and flourish.

The grandmother hypothesis suggests that humans have “given up” their reproductive potential in later years in order to invest in the children they already have as well as their grandchildren. Naturally, this is an unconscious, biological adaptation that emerges over many generations and is not the result of individual decision-making. For such a hypothesis to be confirmed it would have to be demonstrated that children are significantly more likely to survive when a grandmother is present than when she isn’t.

Dr. Lummaa has done just that in her study published in the journal Nature, demonstrating that children are 12% more likely to survive to adulthood when they have a grandmother’s support than when they don’t.

Let’s hear it for grandmas! Link

 
Comment (6)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         



Injured Woman Rescues Herself

Posted by Miss Cellania in Odd News on September 22, 2009 at 11:22 am

Cynthia Blair-Hoover of Granby, Colorado crashed on the way to Denver when her car went off a cliff near Central City. Although the fall left the 52-year-old woman with eleven broken ribs, broken vertebrae, and a punctured lung, she began inching her way towards an old mine by sliding on her back.

For five and a half days and nights, Hoover sucked moisture off her hair and did her best to stay warm through rain, hail and even snow at the 8,000 foot mark in the mountains. By the following Tuesday, she was able to hear voices coming from the mine, where they were conducting tours. When the voices stopped, she would yell for help and after several minutes, one of the men heard her cries for help.

“I couldn’t believe she was able to survive,” said Fire Chief, Gary Allen. “We have mountain lions, bears and other critters up here. It is a miracle she wasn’t mauled to death.”

Hoover was airlifted to a hospital in Denver, where she is currently recovering in the intensive care unit. Link -via Arbroath

 
Comment (9)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         



Cast Away ... With a Baby Pig

Posted by Queuebot in Everything Else on September 2, 2009 at 6:13 pm

Xavier Rosset, a young Swiss adventurer, recently returned to Europe after spending 300 days on an isolated island, armed with only a few knives and a baby pig for companionship.  He voluntarily chose the volcanic isle of Tofua, which has nothing except "some pigs, lots of coconuts, a lake and tropical forest." 

Rosset’s goal was to ‘relearn’ the natural survival skills which many urban males seem to have forgotten.

“At the beginning I had to try hard to survive,” the former professional snowboarder said.

“I had to find the food and water, build shelter, learn how to fish, everything.”

Last September, just 10 days in, he had a realisation that he was all alone and would be for many months to come.

“That was very hard, without my family, my girlfriend, my friends. There was a lot of loneliness.”

But he was kept busy just trying to survive.

Link – via uniquedaily

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

 
Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         



Earthquake Survival Suits for Pets

Posted by John Farrier in Animal, Gadget on July 30, 2009 at 6:46 am

Earthquake-prone Japan has a market for these suits that you strap onto your cats and dogs so that they can survive for days after a major earthquake. Each suit contains all of the necessary gear including water, biscuits, aromatherapy oils, and rubber foot pads, all contained in the pockets of a flame-resistant coat.

Link (in Japanese) via Rinkya via Popped Culture

 
Comment (18)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         


Neatorama Shop » Neatorama T-Shirts
Neatorama LOLcats
See more Neatorama T-Shirts »

Masabumi Hosono: The Man Condemned for Surviving The Titanic

Posted by Alex in Bathroom Reader on June 16, 2009 at 4:57 am

The following is reprinted from Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader


Sinking of the Titanic - LIFE Images

We all know the story of the Titanic - but did you know that one man survived the disaster only to be condemned for not dying an honorable death? Here's the story of a lone Japanese onboard of the ill-fated ocean liner whose survival actually became a curse:

THE LONG TRIP HOME


RMS Titanic - photo via abratis.de

In 1910 Japan's Transportation Ministry sent an official named Masabumi Hosono to Russia to study that country's railroad system. Hosono finished his assignment in early 1912 and, following a brief stop in London, began the next leg of his trip home by embarking across the Atlantic on the RMS Titanic. Needless to say, that leg of the trip didn't go quite as planned.

On April 14, at 11:40 p.m., just four days into its maiden voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg while traveling near top speed and began taking on water.
(Photo: Cheddarbay.com)

RUDE AWAKENING

It's doubtful that anyone on the Titanic, which had been advertised by the White Star Liner as being "practically unsinkable," realized at first that the ship had suffered a mortal blow. There were plenty of people on board who didn't even know the ship had hit anything. Many of those who noticed felt only a slight shudder followed by the sound of the engines coming to a stop.

Hosono apparently slept through the entire thing. The first he learned of it was shortly after midnight, 25 or 30 minutes after the collision, when he was awakened by a knock at the door of his second-class cabin and told to put on his life vest.

Three times when he tried to make his way to the lifeboats, he was turned away by the ship's officers, who ordered him to return to the lower levels of the ship. They likely assumed that, as a Japanese person, he must have been traveling in third class, or "steerage." On his third attempt, Hosono managed to slip past a guard and make his way to the lifeboats.

IN THE DARK

Was the Titanic sinking, or was it just floating dead on the water, waiting to be assisted by the ocean liner Carpathia or one of the half a dozen other ships who'd received her distress calls and were already steaming to her aid?

We know the answer today, of course, but on that fateful night only three men on the Titanic did - Edward J. Smith, the captain; Thomas Andrews, the chief designer; and J. Bruce Ismay, the president of the White Star Line.

They knew not only that the Titanic would sink, but also that it would sink well before help arrived. And they kept the information to themselves, fearing a panic that would cause the passengers to stampede the lifeboats, which when filled to capacity could carry only 1,178 of the more than 2,200 people on board.

Even the officers ordered to organize the loading of the lifeboats had no idea that the Titanic was going down.

THANKS ... BUT NO THANKS

Withholding this information did help to keep the loading of the lifeboats orderly, but probably at the cost of hundreds of needless deaths. Many passengers and even many crew members, not suspecting the gravity of the situation, preferred to remain on board rather than risk climbing into the lifeboats. If you had booked passengers on a ship that was said to be unsinkable, would you be willing to leave its warm, dry, and seemingly safe environs to climb into a tiny, swinging lifeboat in the middle of the night, and be lowered on pulleys 65 feet straight down into the freezing, iceberg-filled Atlantic? Even the captain's order to load women and children first must have cost some passengers their lives, because it meant that married women were being asked to separate from their husbands, which many refused to do.

Besides, what was the rush? As far as the crew members loading the boats knew, the Titanic wasn't sinking. The lifeboats were simply going to ferry passengers to the rescue ships when they arrived, and that was still hours away. There would be plenty of time to load more people into the lifeboats later, if they didn't want to go now. The crew members filled the boats with as many people as wanted to get in, and then lowered them into the water. In the end, only three of Titanic's 20 lifeboats were filled to capacity when they set down in the Atlantic.

Hosono must have sensed what was happening earlier than many of the passengers did, because as he stood next to Lifeboat No. 10 as it was being loaded, he was already steeling himself for the end. "I tried to prepare myself for the last moment with no agitation, making up my mind not to leave anything disgraceful as a Japanese," he explained in a letter to his wife. "But still I found myself looking for and waiting for any possible chance to survive."

That chance came moments later, when the officer loading No. 10 could not coax any more women or children into the boat. "Room for two more!" the officer called out. Hosono watched as another man jumped into the boat.

"I myself was deep in desolate thought that I would no more be able to see my beloved wife and children, since there was no alternative for me than to share the same destiny as the Titanic," he wrote. "But the example of the first man making a jump led me to take this last chance." Hosono hopped in, and at 1:20 a.m. he and 34 other people were lowered to safety in a boat built to hold 65.


One of the lifeboats carrying Titanic survivors (Photo: The National Archives)

FINAL MOMENTS

The Titanic, by now sitting very low in the water, had just one hour left to live. Eight of the 20 lifeboats had already launched and only one of them - Hosono's No. 10 - was filled even halfway to capacity. (Lifeboat No. 1 launched with only 12 passengers out of a possible 40). Many of the passengers still aboard the Titanic were just beginning to realize that the "unsinkable" ship might really be sinking.

When the Titanic finally slipped beneath the waves at 2:20 a.m., Hosono watched from Lifeboat No. 10. He described the experience in a letter to his wife, which he wrote on board the Carpathia as it brought the survivors to New York. "What had been a tangible, graceful sight was not reduced to a mere void. And how I thought about the inevitable vicissitudes of life!"

AFTERMATH

Of the more than 2,200 passengers and crew aboard the Titanic, just over 700 survived, including 316 of the 425 women and 56 of 109 children. Even if every woman and child had been accommodated in the lifeboats, there still would have been enough room for nearly 700 of the 1,690 men, yet only 338 men survived. Not everyone who perished did so because they declined an opportunity to climb into a lifeboat, not by a long shot. But this must surely have been the cause of many deaths.

In the shock and horror that followed one of the worst peace-time disasters in maritime history, many of these subtle details were lost on newspaper-reading public. As they counted up the 162 dead women and children, many readers wondered how 338 men had managed to find their way into the lifeboats, "displacing" those helpless victims. Hosono received some of the harshest criticism of all. Not from the American newspapers, who expected chivalrous self-sacrifice from well-bred gentlemen of the middle and upper classes, but were dismissive of foreigners and the rabble traveling in the steerage. Few American papers even took an interest in Hosono's story. One that did celebrated the good fortune of the "lucky Japanese boy."

SAVED ... AND CONDEMNED

No, the harshest attack against Hosono came from his own countrymen. For in surviving the Titanic disaster, he had broken two cultural taboos. Not only had Hosono chosen ignominious life over an honorable death, he had done so in public - on a European passenger liner with the eyes of the world upon him.

Hosono was denounced as a coward by Japanese newspapers and fired from his job with the Transportation Ministry. The ministry hired him back a few weeks later, but his career never recovered. College professors denounced him as immoral, and he was written up in Japanese textbooks as a man who had disgraced his country. There were even public calls for him to commit hara-kiri - ritual suicide - as means of saving face.

Hosono never did kill himself, but there must have been times when he wished he'd died on the Titanic. He never spoke of the experience again, and forbade any mention of it in his home. After he died in 1939, a broken and forgotten man, his letter to his wife, written on what is believed to be the only surviving piece of Titanic stationery, sat in a drawer until 1997, when the blockbuster film Titanic staged its Tokyo premiere. Then the Japanese public's interest in the doomed liner's lone Japanese passenger was renewed again, this time with much more sympathy.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader.

The Bathroom Readers' Institute has sailed the seas of science, history, pop culture, humor, and more to bring you Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader. Our all-new 21st edition is overflowing with over 500 pages of material that is sure to keep you fully absorbed.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute has published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute.

 
Comment (20)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         



Tonka the Tortoise

Posted by Queuebot in Animal on May 28, 2009 at 5:55 am

Tonka the tortoise was found in San Mateo County in California after it had been attacked by a dog that had bitten off one of her legs.  Rescuers were afraid she would never be able to move normally until one of them had the idea to attach wheels from a Tonka truck to her. Now she really gets around!

Local resident John O’Dea, 35, has now adopted Tonka and said she loved nothing better than roaming in the vegetable patch and going for ‘walks’.

Surfer John said: ‘She is doing really well and loves roaming around the vegetable garden on her shiny new wheels.

‘She has a particular fondness for tomatoes.

‘I take her for ‘walks’ regularly around my neighbourhood, I think she likes the speed but I do get a few funny looks.

Link – via fark

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ccmushroom.

 
Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         



Building a Snow Cave - Ray Mears Extreme Survival

Posted by Queuebot in Travel & Places on February 6, 2009 at 8:52 am

While Bear Grylls may have all the charm and reckless abandon that we all love, everyone knows he doesn’t really do half the surviving he claims to on his show.
Ray Mears however has spent his life learning from the worlds Indigenous tribes, picking up skills and dedicating all his time to survival, so he knows a thing or two.

Here he demonstrates how to build a snow cave, which if necessary you could shelter in for weeks at a time until the weather cleared up enough to get to safety. Not many of us are likely to see that much snow any time soon, but its a great bit of knowledge to have.

Link [YouTube]

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

 
Comment (19)    Permalink   Please share:  email this